Budget process

What do you think about lobbying the Legislature to change the Joint Rules to say that in each Chamber the the Budget ought to be debated in order, line item by line item videoed live and stored for later viewing. Anyway, that's the way we used to do in the good old days before "rules reform". The galleries were packed with the press and other observers, paid and volunteer who often stuck with the whole process and attended the open conference committees as well. 

I tried the idea out at the League of Women Voters lobby day today and got some positive feedback from the audience and some mixed reviews from a very short list of legislators and staff so I though I would try and get some feedback here.

In the SHNS yesterday, DeLeo repeated his insistence that the state needs to reform its ethics and pension rules to win back the trust of a public turned sour on Beacon Hill integrity, after a string of scandals and DiMasi’s departure amid ethics questions. “The level of confidence, shall I say to be nice, of our constituency is at a low point,” the speaker said. DeLeo said the only way to reverse that is to “show that we’re serious about ethics reform and pension reform, in particular.” He said he planned to “roll out a package” within the next month or so to address those issues.